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Sunday, 25 December 2011

[...] Islam has a long history of accommodating itself to its host culture
without watering down its tenets. In 21st-century Britain, that means
pressing the Islamophobia button, and pressing it hard.

Would conservative Christians be allowed to extol the beauty of the
Gospel in secular primary schools and hospitals? Don’t be silly. The
public sector knows which stereotypes it’s happy to challenge and those
it would rather leave undisturbed.

The IDC is a “non-judgmental place”, according to its advertisements.
No doubt that’s true – so long as you don’t count the stuff on its
website about the unrighteous burning forever in “the fire of hell”. But
somehow I doubt that the subject crops up in diversity workshops. Read more

Friday, 23 December 2011

THE Bishop of Chelmsford's sharp sense of humour was apparent when he
said enjoying Christmas without going to church is like gate-crashing a
wedding and simply indulging in an orgy of eating and drinking.

His mischievous, forthright outlook is important as the church attempts to modernise and appeal to future generations.

The statement raised a few chuckles, but also raised an intriguing argument.

We wanted to find out if our readers agree with the Bishop, so we
took to the streets and asked a cross-section of Essex residents what
Christmas means to them.

Many of the people we asked agreed with him, claiming that
Christmas has become too commercial and should be stripped back to the
religious event that spawned it. Read more

[...] The truth is, however, that differences between Scotland and England are fewer
than they used to be. The strongest institution in 19th- and early
20th-century Scotland was the Presbyterian Kirk. It set the tone of the
nation. Its values – thrift, self-restraint, self-help, hard work – were
thought to characterise the Scottish people. The Kirk was very different
from the Church of England, its morality narrower and more demanding. Now it
is a pale shadow of what it used to be. Religion plays no greater a part in
Scottish than in English life. Both countries have been secularised. For
years, too, the Church and Nation Committee of the Kirk produced reports on
socio-economic matters that were little different from Labour Party
handouts. When Margaret Thatcher was invited to address the general assembly
of the Kirk, she infuriated her audience by speaking, from her Methodist
background, much as ministers of the Kirk might have done a couple of
generations previously.

Assimilation is evident in other visible ways. Shopping centres in Scotland
are just like shopping centres in England; the same may be said of what is
left of our high streets. We mostly watch the same television programmes,
see the same movies, and respond to the same popular music. Football is
Scotland’s national game, but Scottish newspapers give far more coverage to
English football than they used to, and if a boy is not wearing a Rangers or
Celtic replica shirt, he is more likely to wear a Manchester United one than
that of another Scottish club. Our postman was early one Saturday. When I
asked why, he said he had arranged his shift to get to Old Trafford.

The more life in Scotland is like life in England, the more the need is felt
to assert our distinct identity. There is another factor not perhaps given
sufficient weight. This is the gravitational pull exerted by London – and
increasingly resented. Read more

Father Immanuel Dabaghian, one of Baghdad’s last surviving priests, is
expecting a quiet Christmas. To join him in the Church of the Virgin Mary
means two hours of security checks and a body search at the door, and even
then there’s no guarantee of survival. Islamist gunmen massacred 58 people
in a nearby church last year, and fresh graffiti warns remaining worshippers
that they could be next.

The Americans have gone now, and Iraq’s Christian communities – some of the
world’s oldest – are undergoing an exodus on a biblical scale.

Of the country’s 1.4 million Christians, about two thirds have now fled.
Although the British Government is reluctant to recognise it, a new evil is
sweeping the Middle East: religious cleansing. The attacks, which peak at
Christmas, have already spread to Egypt, where Coptic Christians have seen
their churches firebombed by Islamic fundamentalists. In Tunisia, priests
are being murdered. Maronite Christians in Lebanon have, for the first time,
become targets of bombing campaigns. Christians in Syria, who have suffered
as much as anyone from the Assad regime, now pray for its survival. If it
falls, and the Islamists triumph, persecution may begin in earnest. Read more

Thursday, 22 December 2011

Every Christmas season the sprawling, life-size
displays are put up by local Christian congregations on a bluff at
Palisades Park, overlooking Santa Monica Pier and the Pacific.

But the pratice has come under attack from non-believers who this year applied to use the land to deliver their own message.

Santa
Monica, which is well known for its liberal politics, decided to
institute a lottery to ensure everyone's constitutional rights to frees
speech under the First Amendment were protected.

A
flood of entries to the lotyter from atheist groups led to them winning
18 of the 21 display spots. Instead of scenes depicting the manger in
Bethlehem the area is now staked with signs referring to Christianity as
"fables and mythology." One poster depicts God and says "37 million
Americans know myths when they see them." Read more

Friday, 16 December 2011

One in five women aged 45 has no children, new figures show, putting childlessness for women born in 1965 at a 45-year-high.

A fifth of women born in the mid 1960s remain childless by the end of
their childbearing years, considered to be 45-years-old, compared with
one in nine women born in 1938.

Reasons
for this drop include falling numbers of women choosing to walk down
the aisle, changes in the perceived cost and benefits of bringing up
children, and greater social acceptability of a child-free lifestyle.

Some women also leave decisions about starting a family too late, the Office of National Statistics said.

WITH the second largest diocese in the country to look after and a
hectic schedule to go with it, the Bishop of Chelmsford needs to escape
the daily pressures of life and unwind.

But you may be surprised to hear that, rather than putting his feet up
in front of the TV, the Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell spends a lot of his
spare time penning stories in his kitchen and writing
poetry.

He describes the hobby as a “compulsive joy” and writes most days,
inspired by his day-to-day experiences, as well as by other authors and
poets.

A number of his works have been published, including a book of children’s stories and books specifically for non-churchgoers.

His latest offering, the Nail, is out now.

The story is a reflective account of the crucifixion of Jesus. It
features perspectives from seven characters, including Pontius Pilate
and Judas Iscariot. Each justifies the part they played and
blame is passed between them to a degree, but the reader is invited to
ask themselves if they would have behaved any differently. Read more

Sunday, 4 December 2011

The world can give me cute
cupcake designs and decorating tips, scrapbooking parties, casserole
recipes, and other ways to pass the time. But truly, with my respect
and love, may I be honest? If I wanted to learn how to decorate
cupcakes, I would take a class in it. If I wanted to be educated on
strategies for decorating my home inexpensively from Winners, I would just, you know, go to Winners. Or Pinterest.

But I'm here with you now because I want what the world cannot give me.
We're choking on cutesy things and crafty bits, safe lady topics, and
if one more person says that modest is hottest with a straight face, I
may throw up. We are hungry for authenticity and vulnerability, not
churchified life hacks from lady magazines. Some of us are drowning,
suffocating, dying of thirst for want of the cold water of real
community. We're trying really hard--after all, we keep showing up to
your lady events, and we leave feeling just a bit empty. It's just more
of the same every time. Read more